Drip Drip Goes The Uniseal (Leaking!)

[Sour Wreck]

Looking good so far! In that very first picture you posted with the pvc pipe going down on an angle....

If you could possibly get a piece that is a slip fitting, so it screws onto that bulkhead, and then you can slip a pipe over it. Then you could get a flexible pipe and you will not have to worry about minor differences in height.

That's what I'm using for my res., 20gal brute. I believe you could get away with a much smaller res also if you wanted, like those flip-lid-garbage-cans. I like the brute.

I made mine work with a simple ball-valve. But I will most likely do a complete re-vamp once this run is finished, with proper 4" bulkheads, top-fed and with my mean 1K-gal. pump.

do you have any links to any products like you are talking about?

or pictures?

thanks

 

[Joint Monster]

do you have any links to any products like you are talking about?

or pictures?

thanks

I'm not the best plumber, but you're looking for something like this:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/1-in-PVC-Barb-x-FPT-Insert-Female-Adapter-1435010RMC/203003377

^A little teflon/plumbing tape and screw it over your bulkhead. Slip your pipe over the other end, and tighten down with a clamp. Much easier to take apart to.

And your lids look CLEAN! I was debating painting my lids but seeing yours makes me want to! What kind of paint did you use?

 

[Sour Wreck]

I'm not the best plumber, but you're looking for something like this:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/1-in-PVC-Barb-x-FPT-Insert-Female-Adapter-1435010RMC/203003377

^A little teflon/plumbing tape and screw it over your bulkhead. Slip your pipe over the other end, and tighten down with a clamp.

And your lids look CLEAN! I was debating painting my lids but seeing yours makes me want to! What kind of paint did you use?

thanks, i used plasti-dip, a rubber paint. some krylon plastic paint would work too...

also, your idea would work. at this point i would have to re-design a lot of the plumbing. if my method doesn't work out, i will keep those fittings in mind.

 

[OneHitDone]

Oh yes, the lovely Uni-Seal / Rubbermaid drip issue.

If you can put them through from the inside out helps a little but the walls on the brutes are so soft it's hard to get a proper seal. Especially as hard as you have to push on the pipe to get it through the Uni-Seal.
Very hard to find a sealant that will stick to the polyethylene of the Brute too!!
Best thing I found was the Black "Rood and Flashing" Urethane Sealant by PL at Homie Diaper
Good Luck Grower

 

[ttystikk]

i already bought some HDX totes in anticipation of rebuilding my DWC system, but now i am leaning RDWC.

where are you guys buying these 1" bulkheads?

Hydro store. Pack of ten was $36.00

 

[ttystikk]

Mhmm... I'm starting to think you got this figured out!



AH! That helps me makes sense of it better in my mind!




Thanks mate! I will be back on that one in some time. Putting pipes in uniseals is no easy job, and I can barely lift bag of soil. My buddy helped me put it together and then take it apart, and then put together the hdx. Don't think they'll want to do that right again, but I will slowly start getting things figured out once I have a little bit of spare time will get started again slowly.
If I can get the Brutes to work they'll be a mean flowering system, and then I can use my HDX to veg.

(But for now, I need to get this HDX system working correctly!)

--------------------

If I keep the pump on the bottom where it is, but add feed lines to each side, do you think that would be enough to allow me to use my (small 300gph) pump at full speed? Currently running it restricted (pressure is like when you leave a faucet on low) and that's the only way the buckets stay levelled right now.

>New lines would be the same 3/4" bulkheads with 3/4" piping, like in between the containers currently.
> If it does work would you recommend I put the pump in the res and top feed, or would it be fine just the way it is with added lines on each side?
> and my temp has been a solid 64.4F/18C for a week now and I don't expect it to get any warmer here (if anything it will get colder)... is it safe to say I can get rid of my water chiller?

My buddy is worried adding more bulkheads to the containers will cause problems/leaks/ containers won't hold up? (he's not a hydro guy... just a good friend and muscle.)

View attachment 4115241

No. Pump should be in the control bucket and output to a manifold that delivers water to each tubsite. Use a tee fitting in the underside of each lid so you get a waterfall in each tub.

It's my secret to massive roots. I've gotten beards over 3' long. Yes they clog my outlet ports occasionally but it's easy to just lift the lids and pull the roots out once or twice a run.

 

[OneHitDone]

No. Pump should be in the control bucket and output to a manifold that delivers water to each tubsite. Use a tee fitting in the underside of each lid so you get a waterfall in each tub.

It's my secret to massive roots. I've gotten beards over 3' long. Yes they clog my outlet ports occasionally but it's easy to just lift the lids and pull the roots out once or twice a run.

You going back to dwc when you fire back up?

 

[ttystikk]

View attachment 4115721 View attachment 4115719

Your illustration does not match the configuration in the pic. I know I'm late to this conversation but the fact that you have all your buckets connected to a return manifold is the reason why you have even water levels in your buckets.

 

[ttystikk]

May I ask why every design I see has the plumbing coming out of the sides? Why don't people design systems with the plumbing running underneath, all you would need to do is put your buckets on a 6" riser. You could utilize overflows in each bucket helping create more oxygen naturally as well. Bottoms of buckets are typically flat so it would be much easier to install a bulkhead on versus a rounded side.

Limited overhead space and excess complexity.

 

[ttystikk]

Just out of curiosity why do you want to eliminate air pumps/stones? Is it the noise? They have very quiet air pumps out now if that's the concern. A big part of the magic in RDWC is the oxygen to the roots. While you can probably get enough movement and water drop to keep them growing they won't be as explosive IMHO.

Cheaper to build, less to break, don't need it, no need to maintain it repair parts that aren't there.

Other than that, no good reason

 

[ttystikk]

I don’t buy the “organic tastes better” thing for the same reasons. There are benefits to organic agriculture particularly at a large commercial scale, but most folks don’t understand what the benefits of organic growing are and are not. Lots of magical thinking out there. I support organic ag, but the organic enthusiasts make it hard sometimes.

Dude, you've seen my RDWC and tasted the results.

Nuff said.

 

[ttystikk]

Looking good so far! In that very first picture you posted with the pvc pipe going down on an angle....

If you could possibly get a piece that is a slip fitting, so it screws onto that bulkhead, and then you can slip a pipe over it. Then you could get a flexible pipe and you will not have to worry about minor differences in height. (although it looks like you might have already dealt with that. )

That's what I'm using for my res., 20gal brute. I believe you could get away with a much smaller res also if you wanted, like those flip-lid-garbage-cans. I like the brute.

I made mine work with a simple ball-valve. But I will most likely do a complete re-vamp once this run is finished, with proper 4" bulkheads, top-fed and with my mean 1K-gal. pump.

Believe it or not, I find that smaller pumps are better so water levels stay more even across all the tubsites. The waterfall action is what aerates the water, not brute force.

 

[Michael Huntherz]

Dude, you've seen my RDWC and tasted the results.

Nuff said.

Yeah, and I know how roots work. Roots don’t know if an element is omri listed, or plain old manganese. And you had redonkulous roots, to boot.

 

[ttystikk]

You going back to dwc when you fire back up?

Sure! All my gear is still here, why spend money I don't have to?

 

[ttystikk]

Yeah, and I know how roots work. Roots don’t know if an element is omri listed, or plain old manganese. And you had redonkulous roots, to boot.

Yes. Yes I did. Santa Claus himself was jealous of my beards;

 

[Joint Monster]

Believe it or not, I find that smaller pumps are better so water levels stay more even across all the tubsites. The waterfall action is what aerates the water, not brute force.

I thought I would need something close to 1K, to reach the 8-10x circulation per hour. (At ~110Gal.. that would be 800-1000Gph). Or is that not really necessary?

Right now I feel like I'm just meeting minimum circulation requirements. If I took out my air stones I think the girls would start to droop with that over-watered look.

^WHOA! That's awesome mate! How long were those vegg'ed? (And that's an interesting lid/HDbucket combo!) Do you find the larger net pot helps create a larger rootball? Or was it lid convenience?

 

[ttystikk]

I thought I would need something close to 1K, to reach the 8-10x circulation per hour. (At ~110Gal.. that would be 800-1000Gph). Or is that not really necessary?

Right now I feel like I'm just meeting minimum circulation requirements. If I took out my air stones I think the girls would start to droop with that over-watered look.

^WHOA! That's awesome mate! How long were those vegg'ed? (And that's an interesting lid/HDbucket combo!) Do you find the larger net pot helps create a larger rootball? Or was it lid convenience?

The netnet bucket lid makes life easier and allows me to use cut down 5 gallon buckets as spacers to get extra capacity in the tub.

It does not take force to oxygenate, just repetition. You see the rootball, no airstones were involved.

The tee fitting in the lid is how it gets a good splash and thus both agitation and oxygenation.

Paying attention to the little things is what separates simple yet elegant designs from less effective ones. Believe me when I tell you that every detail has a hard lesson learned behind it!

 

[OneHitDone]

Sure! All my gear is still here, why spend money I don't have to?

So not staying on the Tupur train?

 

[ttystikk]

So not staying on the Tupur train?

It was a phase. RDWC spoiled me; I much prefer using a pump to move my media instead of having to carry it.

RDWC also gave better yields.

 

[Cold$moke]

Your illustration does not match the configuration in the pic. I know I'm late to this conversation but the fact that you have all your buckets connected to a return manifold is the reason why you have even water levels in your buckets.

That and water displacment via top feed

The top feed makes a differnce because no matter the return line configuration water will self level ....as long as its not.beings sucked out faster then it can drain